Inflatable Wisdom From a Reflective Mom

Yesterday, this pictures in my Facebook memories took me back so clearly to the feeling of being an exhausted young mom. I actually recall that I wrote a blog about the picture on that day, July 6, 2011.

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In the blog I wrote:

This afternoon Matan was bugging me to take him to the shoe store for some cool new tennis shoes. So, we drove over to the Naot Store and I quickly looked for a way to keep Zeli (who is almost three) occupied while Matan looked for shoes. They have these inflatable horses in the store that Zeli has always loved to bounce on and I handed him one.

I quickly realized that we were not going to be finding shoes for Matan, and we got ready to leave.

And then the trouble began. Zeli assumed that we were leaving – with the horse in hand. And there was NO convincing him otherwise. I contemplated hurling him over my shoulder (have you seen what the kid weighs?) and storming out of the store, but then I stopped in my tracks.

You know what? It’s been about the worst 10 days that I remember having in my entire life. And here was my adorable three year old, with tears streaming down his cheeks, yelling for a little fun on a red inflatable horse. And his birthday IS just around the corner. And he has LOVED this horse every time that he’s been in the store.

And so, giving myself a break, and giving both of us just a bit of inflatable, bouncy joy, we drove home with that horsey on Zeli’s lap.

And he smiled the whole way home.

And so did I.

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Some pictures conjure up worlds of memory and take you back to that exact moment in time; as this picture did for me. Looking at it now, 14 years later, I don’t remember the tears or the tantrum; I don’t remember the exhaustion or the many ways I was being pulled that difficult summer. Honestly, I just remember that adorable bouncy horse and my sweet son’s giggles as he jumped around the house with it for years.

And it made me consider what I would want to say to my younger self – to young parents today. The days (and nights) are so long but the years (honestly) are so, so short. And while the answer to every tantrum isn’t to buy the bouncy horse, there are many lessons to learn.

Be gentler with yourself.

Try to find the joy in those little moments.

Think about how you would like to look back on a given moment many years from now.

Write down the cute moments or capture those random times with pictures– it gives great joy to be able to look at them later.

Realize that later you may even share these moments with the kids and you’ll find yourself laughing at the hard moments, as much as at the funny or silly ones.

I know it’s hard. I know you’re exhausted and worried and there is just so much to do and to think about and to plan ahead for. But those years will fly and you’ll be left hoping that there was enough time together and enough laughter and enough independent growth and maturity.

And hopefully, you’ll have a lot of pictures like this one that can just make you smile and bring you back to one of those sweet moments of their youth.